Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust RealismIn Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism David Enoch develops, argues for, and defends a strongly realist and objectivist view of ethics and normativity more broadly. This view--according to which there are perfectly objective, universal, moral and other normative truths that are not in any way reducible to other, natural truths--is familiar, but this book is the first in-detail development of the positive motivations for the view into reasonably precisearguments. And when the book turns defensive--defending Robust Realism against traditional objections--it mobilizes the original positive arguments for the view to help with fending off the objections.The main underlying motivation for Robust Realism developed in the book is that no other metaethical view can vindicate our taking morality seriously. The positive arguments developed here--the argument from the deliberative indispensability of normative truths, and the argument from the moral implications of metaethical objectivity (or its absence)--are thus arguments for Robust Realism that are sensitive to the underlying, pre-theoretical motivations for the view. |
Contents
1 The View the Motivation the Book | 1 |
2 The Argument from the Moral Implications of Objectivity or Lack Thereof | 16 |
3 The Argument from the Deliberative Indispensability of Irreducibly Normative Truths | 50 |
4 And Now Robust Metaethical Realism | 85 |
5 Doing with Less | 100 |
6 Metaphysics | 134 |
7 Epistemology | 151 |
8 Disagreement | 185 |
9 Motivation | 217 |
10 Tallying Plausibility Points | 267 |
| 272 | |
| 287 | |
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Common terms and phrases
action agent amoralist appropriate causal role argue argument for Robust argument from disagreement Caricaturized Subjectivism challenge to Robust Chapter claim conclusion constructive empiricism context correlation course deliberation deliberative indispensability discussion distinction epistemic justification epistemological challenge error theory existence-internalism explanandum explanatory expressivism expressivist F-ing fictionalism fictionalist first-order IMPARTIALITY indispensability argument inference instance intuition irreducibly normative Judgment-Internalism justified kind least mathematical metaethical view Metanormative Realism metaphysical modus ponens moral disagreement moral truths natural naturalist reduction neutral normative beliefs normative discourse normative facts normative judgments normative properties normative reasons normative truths numbers objections to Robust objectivist one’s ontological commitment parsimony requirement perhaps philosophical plausibility points play an appropriate possible premise question quietist reject relevant response response-dependence Robust Realism rule of inference Scanlon Schroeder’s seems sense Shafer-Landau 2003 skepticism specific sufficient suggested supervenience theory of justification things thought true understanding understood Wedgwood worry